Wendi Malone is keeping her swimming suit a secret. But what she will reveal is that it's from the 1950s, found in California, very Hawaiian and a "total thrill."

Malone is getting ready for the Miss Voodoo Island Pin-Up swimsuit competition, which kicks off 6 p.m. tomorrow near the pool at the Millennium Harvest House hotel in Boulder. One judging point: authenticity. In that, Malone feels confident. She's been studying pictures of Betty Grable.

Her draw: "It's the embodiment of femininity. It takes whatever your body type is and makes it as beautiful as it can be."

The retro swimsuit pageant is part of the newest old-fashioned brainchild of Boulder event producer Khyentse James, who founded an organization called the 1940s Ball nearly five years ago. Three years ago, it became a nonprofit.

The 1940s Ball holds two events per year, the 1940s WWII Era Ball early summer and the 1940s White Christmas Ball in December.

The new tiki party is yet more vintage, more burlesque, more Elvis -- but with a different spin: set in 1950s Hawaii. Elvis on uke. Mermaids and King Kong and Hawaiian hula and fire dancers. Mai tais. A nine-piece Afro-Cuban orchestra. Palm trees and hundreds of leis.

James and her team decided last summer to add a third annual event to the 1940s Ball's repertoire, based on demand, after the flagship WWII Ball held in a Boulder Airport hangar began selling out. More than 2,500 people attended this year, with ticket sales shut down days before the event and many people turned away at the door.

"We definitely experienced some growing pains this year," James says. "I've been thinking about a tiki event for a while, and because of the success of the WWII ball, we realized we could add another one in."

The most recent White Christmas Ball at the Elk's Lodge in Boulder sold out, too.

Voodoo Island will have different music, performers and decorations -- plus the pool -- and is expected to be smaller (1,000 to 1,500) because it is more of a niche interest, James says.

She says it's fitting to hold this event after the WWII Ball because it pays historical homage to the 1940s and 1950s.

"We had WWII and then the soldiers were coming back from Hawaii with all of these great stories about the tropics," James says. "That's how the tiki explosion happened the first time around."

The inspiration behind the tiki party is James' grandparents, Joan and Edward James, radio performers with "a lot of personality," she says.

When she was growing up, she says her favorite picture was of her grandparents both dressed as hula girls, taking hula lessons on the beach in Hawaii with a fire in the background.

"It was always this fantasy, this magical time I wanted to visit," she says.

In a way, she's bringing that to life this weekend. Paradise lost.

"You'll be stepping into another world, in another time, the minute you walk through the door," James says.

The plans include smoking tiki heads, huts and a waterfall. They are turning the pool into a lagoon with plant life, a fake hippo, crocodile and animatronic parrot. A chainsaw artist from Canyon City will be carving an 8-foot tree live into a tiki pole. Local tiki-themed businesses will be selling products. One band, Vibes on Velvet, will play '50s and '60s exotica music, complete with bird calls and psychedelic vibes.

"With the exception of voodoo punch, they are all pretty historical drinks," Behrenhausen says. "For me, it makes me feel like I'm on vacation, like I've been swept away to some tropical locale -- when these drinks are done correctly, which often times they aren't."

She will be holding a symposium on the history of tiki drinks 4 p.m. in a covered area by the pool.

She says her draw to this era is nostalgia. She remembers going to tiki restaurants and bars with her grandparents when she was young. She recalls the tiki room at Disneyland.

"It conjures up memories of a time when things weren't very complicated and you could just sit back and enjoy yourself," she says.

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